IDC: 5G commercialization will greatly benefit the manufacturing industry

The issuance of 5G licenses in China has greatly promoted the development of various industries. Recently, Zhong Zhenshan, head of the emerging technology research department of IDC, a third-party consulting firm, explained in detail the impact of 5G on China's digital economy.

IDC predicts that more than 60% of the world's GDP will be digitized in 2022, and IT-related investment will exceed US$7 trillion in the next four years. In China, the digital economy will account for 65% of GDP, with a scale of US$1.3 trillion during the same period.

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In the face of digital transformation, data has become the key to the success of an enterprise's digital transformation. If an enterprise wants to truly extract business value from data, it must be able to string together the data to form ubiquitous connections.

"If an enterprise wants to become a digital native enterprise, it must have five major characteristics: digital products, digital services, the ability to connect various data, the ability to analyze and mine data, and the ability to convert data into value," said Zhong Zhenshan.

The emergence of 5G has undoubtedly solved the need for data interconnection. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, 5G's contribution to my country's economy was 0.1% in 2020, but by 2030, 5G's contribution will reach 6.3%. Therefore, in Zhong Zhenshan's view, 5G will become a new engine for China's digital economy.

Multiple technologies will develop together with 5G

With the gradual application and development of 5G, Zhong Zhenshan believes that many technologies such as VR and IoT will take off in the 5G era.

First, VR technology. In the past five years, VR technology has been tepid, mainly because the bandwidth and latency cannot meet the requirements of the technology. With the emergence of 5G, the enhanced bandwidth brought by 5G can solve the technical problems faced by AR and VR. Zhong Zhenshan predicts that VR technology will be popularized within 5 years.

Second, driverless technology. Although driverless technology has been regarded as a hot topic in recent years, due to the limitation of network latency, driverless cars are not able to drive on the road. Due to the low latency network characteristics brought by 5G, consumers will see more and more driverless cars driving on the road.

Third, IoT technology. In the past, it was difficult to support a large number of devices connected simultaneously, whether in a wired environment or in a 4G environment. It is reported that the connection density of 5G can reach one million devices per square kilometer, which solves the problem of massive devices connected simultaneously. It can be predicted that China's smart cities will develop rapidly in the next 10 years.

Fourth, edge computing technology. Zhong Zhenshan pointed out that with the connection of a large number of devices, if all the data generated by these devices are transmitted to the terminal, it will bring a huge test to the terminal data processing. Therefore, with the development of IoT technology, edge computing technology will also develop rapidly. The edge center can preliminarily sort out and disassemble the data and transmit useful data to the core database. This technology will greatly alleviate the pressure on the core network in the case of high-density device interconnection.

Fifth, artificial intelligence technology. Zhong Zhenshan believes that at the current stage of artificial intelligence development, data validity has become a bottleneck restricting the development of artificial intelligence technology. Artificial intelligence uses a large amount of data to train machine models and draw conclusions. However, at this stage, the effective data required by artificial intelligence is obviously insufficient.

It is reported that IDC surveyed more than 2,000 companies using artificial intelligence technology around the world, and about 20% of users believed that insufficient effective data will become a key challenge for artificial intelligence development models. IDC predicts that by 2023, more than 40% of all new data in the world will be generated from the edge and end side.

China will build more than 80,000 5G base stations in 2019

From 1G to 3G, China lagged behind the world's leading level. By 4G, China's development speed was on par with the world. In the 5G era, China's 5G network construction is synchronized with the world.

At present, my country's three major operators have each launched dozens of 5G city pilots across the country. In this regard, Zhong Zhenshan said that these pilots have built my country's basic 5G network on the one hand, and on the other hand, can achieve in-depth exploration of 5G application scenarios.

Overall, my country has shown a positive attitude towards 5G construction, and the overall investment in 5G has gradually increased. China will become one of the most important 5G markets in the world. In addition, IDC predicts that by the end of 2019, my country's three major operators will build 80,000 5G base stations.

Regarding the initial connection situation of 5G in my country, Zhong Zhenshan predicts that the initial stage of 5G will be similar to 4G, and most connections will come from consumers, but with the development of application scenarios, most connections will come from commercial connections.

In addition, from the perspective of IoT market development, manufacturing, consumers, and government will become the three major markets for China's IoT in the future. IDC predicts that in the next four years, my country's manufacturing industry's investment in the IoT field will exceed that of other industries and will become the biggest beneficiary of 5G.